Relaxing in his “study”, Kelvin lit up a fat, celebratory spliff, took a long drag of it, sat back in his swivel chair and exhaled. Man, that shit was good! And, man, he was feeling good! Not only had he just scoffed a big bowl of delicious Swedish meatballs and pasta cooked by Karoline, but, more importantly, he had just read the latest email from his lawyer. That email was the culmination of more than two months’ worth of scheming on his part, a whole two months that the bastard Gilbey and his lawyer had to wait for a reply from him – well, from the lawyer acting on his behalf.

Yes, thanks to Lanky Lenny, he had his very own lawyer now. A chap called Ian Ramsay. In his early thirties, Kelvin guessed, so a bit younger than he was, but sharp as a fucking whip. He had only met the guy twice so far. The first time was about the middle of November last year when they both went through his application for Legal Aid, which Ian then sorted out toot sweet, and when he handed Ian hard copies of all the correspondence to date, including the so-called Personal Bond. After examining that last document, it took Ian just a few seconds to come out with his advice.

“The bad news, Kelvin,” he had said, “is that the Bond looks genuine enough, which means that you’re probably going to have to pay up sooner or later. But the big question is: How much? We can certainly help you by trying to have the amount of the debt reduced to something more manageable. For example, we can insist on this Mr Gilbey producing a breakdown of the amount, which I can see from the correspondence you’ve already been asking for. Once we have the breakdown, we can then dispute it on an item by item basis.

“Better still, if we can come up with any evidence that casts doubt on your Dad’s frame of mind when he signed the Bond, well that could lead to the whole thing being thrown out if the case went to court.

“So what I would ask you to do is take a trawl through your Dad’s papers and see what you can come up with. Sums of money going into his bank account, that sort of thing. And, like I said, anything at all about his mental capacity at the time.”

Pure fucking gold, that was! Ian asked Kelvin to get back in touch once he had been through the papers. Then he fired off a holding letter to Mister La-di-fucking-da hick town lawyer.

Kelvin leaned forward to look at his laptop and scrolled down his Inbox until he found the email with his copy of the letter attached:

We have been appointed to act in relation to the above matter following your letter to the executor of the late Mr Sweetman dated 26 October 2015. We are in the process of taking instructions from our client and would anticipate being in a position to respond at the beginning of next week, but, in the meantime, we would be grateful if you could arrange for all future correspondence to be forwarded to this office.

Poor Ian. He probably thought it would be only a couple of days before Kelvin contacted him again. That wasn’t the Kelvin style, though, was it? Nope, Kelvin wanted plenty of time to examine those papers properly, something he had been reluctant to do until then. Besides, Christmas and New Year were coming up, and Karoline was hankering after the two of them going over to Stockholm for the festivities. Her parents had even offered to pay for their air fares. But there were two ferocious huskies to consider. He couldn’t afford to board them in kennels, nor could he persuade any of his friends or relatives to look after them. Which put the kibosh on the Stockholm trip.

In the event, he and Karoline spent Christmas Day at one of his aunts, so they did manage some family time after all. Bearing in mind what Ian had said about him having to fork out something to Gilbey eventually, he took the opportunity while he was there to sound out his gran and a couple of his aunts about a possible loan of a couple of grand – once they had a few drinks in them, obviously. But all that did was to produce a series of tumbleweed moments, and he came away with nada. His own fucking fault, of course, for never having paid back any money he borrowed from them in the past.

Anyway, during all this time, Mister La-di-da didn’t let up, as expected. He phoned Ian at the beginning of December. Then he sent this email to him about a week later:

I refer to our telephone conversation on 2nd December, 2015.

I expect a follow-up enquiry from my client in early course and so thought it sensible to enquire if you have yet obtained instructions to enable some real headway to be made.

As you know, my instructions are very clear and the extension of time limits has come from our recognition that you had to assemble the facts of the situation before you could advise Mr Sweetman following his eventual (and very welcome) decision to seek independent professional advice.

I hope to hear from you in very early course.

And a stronger one in the first week in January, immediately after the holidays were over:

Although you were not then involved, the first item on our file on this issue is dated 7th July, 2015. Your welcome involvement commenced with your firm’s letter dated 12th November, 2015. While direct contact with your client from here remained competent, we encouraged him to seek independent professional advice and were relieved when he did so. I am also well aware of the disruption which can come from the Festive Season and that extraneous matters can also cause delay.

I have recorded these elements because we have no evidence here of any progress being made towards the settlement of what is due to our client and his late wife’s estate. I am coming under considerable pressure from our client to take the firmest possible action to ensure settlement but have no proposals to present to him on behalf of your client. While such proposals from you on behalf of your client will be most welcome, I should emphasise that our client reserves all his rights and pleas in the matter.

I hope to receive a firm and formal proposal from you in the earliest possible course.

Although Ian kept nipping at him for some kind of response, Kelvin wouldn’t be hurried. As far as he was concerned, La-di-da could make as many phone calls and send as many emails as he wanted. All they would do was add to Gilbey’s legal bill. Whereas anything Ian did on his behalf didn’t cost him a fucking bean.

So those papers. Fucking goldmine! There were three big folders to go through, all meticulously maintained. Which was ironic, really, because his old man had a pathological hatred of what he called “fucking paperwork”. It used to take him months before he got round to sending out invoices for roofing jobs he had carried out. Even though Kelvin had set him up with an old PC and printer to make the task easier, the silly cunt always complained about having to do it. Yet he didn’t seem to have any trouble religiously filing away all the “fucking paperwork” he received.

Anyway, the first folder Kelvin went through contained correspondence going back years regarding the old man’s disability benefit from the DWP, including photocopies of the application forms he had completed. It was when he examined the latter that Kelvin hit pay dirt. Because for every form his father had filled in, there was a draft one that had been filled in by someone else. And it was evident for anyone to see that his father had been copying over the answers in the drafts into his own versions of the form. Kelvin knew well that the “someone else” was his Aunt Abi. He remembered that the old man and her used to spend hours on the phone going through those answers. He also remembered the old man telling him that Aunt Abi and her cunt of a husband had once driven through from wherever the fuck they were living so that they could accompany him at one of those important reassessment interviews down at the DWP offices in Wester Hailes. Well, as far as Kelvin was concerned, it didn’t matter a toss who it was who helped his father. The fact of the matter was – and he now had the evidence to prove it – the old man was incapable of dealing with these matters on his own. And that must surely cast doubt on his ability to agree to a document committing his estate to settle an alleged debt amounting to many thousands of pounds.

Then there was the icing on the cake. The bank statements. Years’ worth of them neatly bundled up with elastic bands in the second folder he had opened. The old man actually had two bank accounts – an official one that the DWP paid his benefit money into and a secret one that he used for depositing the cheques he received from his roofing jobs. Shrewd. Maybe he wasn’t such a silly cunt after all. The key thing was that in the couple of years leading up to the date of the Personal Bond there was no sign on both sets of statements of any cheques or transfers having been received from Aunt Abi or Gilbey. Kelvin knew that would be the case, of course. They would have paid direct for things like Kelly’s funeral and the Bangkok holiday. Or they would have used cash, such as the grand’s worth of spending money Gilbey handed over to him. But in his opinion the absence of any records of the payments meant that Gilbey would now have to prove that a debt actually existed. Added to that, he did find records of those payments from the insurance companies, which could cast doubt on his father needing financial assistance in the first place. Fucking brilliant!

There was a third folder that seemed to hold lots of papers about the old man’s medical condition, but Kelvin was convinced he already had more than enough material with which to return to Ian. So he met with the man for the second time a couple of days ago, and this lovely email from Ian to La-di-da was the outcome of that meeting:

I refer to your email below. I have discussed this matter at some length with my client. To begin with, and I do wish to emphasise this, our client is in no way wishing to be difficult or in any way obtuse. Quite the opposite – he is keen to stress that, provided the money is due to your clients, he is absolutely prepared to make it over to them. However, his concerns rest on two specific issues:

1. Our client is concerned that his father may not have had full capacity at the time when the document was signed. Indeed, he believes he has paperwork from around the same time stating that his father was receiving help with filling out forms and applications with the DWP as he was confused easily and did not understand matters. Once I have evidence of this paperwork to hand I shall, of course, forward it to you.

2. Whilst the personal bond undoubtedly states that Mr Sweetman “acknowledge[s] to have received from [your clients] the sum of £7,500”, we do not appear to have any evidence of the funds ever having been paid over. Again, I wish to emphasise that our client is not attempting to be obtuse in any way but his concerns arise from the fact that he is aware his father received a sum of money at the same time by way of an endowment and cannot understand why he would have required more money at that time. Again, our client’s research of his father’s bank accounts has drawn a blank in this matter.

​There is no doubt at all that prima facie, the personal bond document which we have seen is valid but, as I am sure you can appreciate, our client is wishing to ensure that his concerns are dealt with in the first instance prior to repayment. Perhaps if you would be so kind as to provide me with any comments you may have?

I should also emphasise that, as far as we have been made aware, the only asset of any note in the late Mr Sweetman’s estate is his house. Therefore, the estate will not be in a position to repay the sums due to your clients (if agreed) on an immediate basis as either (a) the property will have to be sold or (b) borrowings will have to be made against the property in order for liquid funds to become available.

I look forward to hearing from you and am happy to talk on the phone at any point should you wish.

Kelvin re-lit his spliff, took another long drag of it and sighed contentedly. Now it was the turn of those two cunts in Callander to squirm.